Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of determining judicial workload in terms of sitting days rather than hours worked on the ability of fee paid judges to undertake duty work across all jurisdictions.

Salaried judges are expected to commit a number of days to judicial business rather than a required number of working hours. Consequently, fees are based on judicial business days, including half or quarter parts thereof, where appropriate.

In 2023, the Ministry of Justice consulted the judiciary on proposals to align judicial fees in the Tribunals. The Government’s response (published on the judicial intranet) set out that hourly payments would be more administratively burdensome but would also have implications for judicial independence given it is a judicial function to manage how time is used.